NHS supports first-cousin marriages despite birth defect risk

2 comments

1. > The NHS guidance points out that the practice has been legal in the UK since the 1500s as a loophole for King Henry VIII to marry Catherine Howard, his ex-wife’s cousin.

   Someone there has to see the irony in a cultural practice only being valid due to laws from the actual 16th century

   Literally medieval laws

2. The Telegraph sure loves shit-talking the NHS and overblowing its supposed “wokeness,” even when the Tories were the ones holding the reins. It makes me wonder what the agenda really is. Is it about putting Tories on a pedestal as the only ones willing to “fight” the cousin marriage scourge? Or is it just another round of culture war posturing dressed up as health reporting?

   Either way, the paper has a long history of pushing greater privatisation of the NHS and portraying it as broken beyond repair. Hard to see this coverage as good faith when it so neatly fits the pattern of undermining public trust in the health service.

   It’s worth stressing that NHS guidance like this isn’t about changing society. The NHS can’t legislate who marries whom. The guidance is about how staff treat people who use its services: give accurate information about risks, provide genetic counselling, avoid stigmatising patients, and put the risks in context with other factors like smoking or parental age. That’s pretty standard public health practice.

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